WAR babies born at Pentillie Castle, one of the stars of Channel 4's Country House Rescue, will be returning there for a special reunion on Sunday.

Around 300 are expected at the 'Pentillie Babies' reunion, a third of whom will be from the Callington and Tavistock areas, but some are coming from as far as Scotland, Essex and St Albans.

The castle, near St Mellion, was requisitioned during the war to be a maternity hospital and named the Anderson Nursing Home. After the TV show, which looks at how to transform some of the nation's struggling mansion houses into viable businesses, the Coryton family, who own the 2,000-acre estate, were flooded with calls from people born there during the war.

'We had no idea,' said Sammie Coryton. 'There are no records. But after the show went out the phone started to ring red hot and we discovered hundreds of people had been born here. We started taking their details and then decided we should hold a reunion for them.'

The Pentillie babies will be treated to a cream tea and look around the house and gardens in advance of its opening as an exclusive hire venue at the beginning of June.

Pentillie opened its gates to the public for the first time in its 300-year history with four garden open days this year. More than 4,000 visitors were drawn to view the romantic gardens, designed by Repton, which reach down to the River Tamar.